Philips has continued to expand its Hue ecosystem with new offerings, and with last fall's introduction of HomeKit compatibility, the Hue system provides a great lighting solution for users who are looking for LED bulbs. This spring, the company has introduced a significantly updated iOS app along with a new Hue White Ambiance Bulb. Users can purchase these individually as Hue White Ambiance Extension Bulbs ($30) which can be added to an existing Hue Bridge, or purchased in the form of the Hue White Ambiance Starter Kit ($130), which provides two bulbs, a second-generation HomeKit-compatible Hue Bridge, and a Hue Dimmer Switch ($25) all in a single kit. The system is similar in concept to the Hue White Starter Kit, switching out the basic Hue White bulbs for the new Hue White Ambiance bulbs, and adding in the Hue Dimmer Switch for the first time.

The Hue Bridge included in this starter kit is the same as the one released last fall — the new square, second-generation bridge that adds HomeKit support to the Hue ecosystem. It’s a drop-in replacement for the older round bridge, and users of the older Hue system still looking to add HomeKit support may find the bundled price of the Starter Kit to be appealing. The Starter Kit includes two of the new Hue White Ambiance Bulbs, the power adapter and Ethernet cable for the Hue Bridge, and the Hue Dimmer — a new addition to Philips’ Hue kits.

The new Hue White Ambiance bulbs add a nice middle ground for users who want more flexibility than simply dimmable white bulbs but don’t have the need — or a desire to pay the higher price — for the Hue White and Color Ambiance Bulbs. At half the price of the color option, the Hue White Ambiance bulbs promise to deliver “every shade of white light” with a color temperature range running from a 6500k cool daylight to a 2200k warm white light setting. The A19 bulbs otherwise look similar to their White and White and Color Ambiance siblings, screwing into any standard light socket and having a small enough profile to replace a standard incandescent bulb in just about any light fixture.

As with the other Starter Kits, users purchasing the kit will find the bulbs and the dimmer switch already factory-paired with the Hue Bridge, so you’re ready to go at a basic level out of the box. Although Philips has updated the Hue app, the setup and pairing process for the Hue Bridge remains basically the same as before; we’ve already covered it in our earlier review so we won’t repeat ourselves here other than to say it’s still pretty straightforward to get it up and running out of the box, and because the bulbs are prepared, you’ll be ready to go as soon as you’ve configured the Bridge. If you already have a Hue Bridge, pairing a new White Ambiance Bulb is the same as for any other bulb, and it will appear in the Hue app and can be controlled like the White and Color Ambiance bulbs, minus the color options, of course.

The Hue Dimmer adds an interesting new component to the mix, however. While users could purchase the Dimmer previously by itself or in a kit paired with a single Hue White bulb, the inclusion of the Dimmer in this Starter Kit provides users with an extra bit of value and another control option. Like the bulbs, the Dimmer is automatically paired with the Bridge and ready to go out of the box for simply controlling both Hue White Ambiance Bulbs together, although settings can further be customized in the new Hue iOS app.

Philips’ new Hue app deserves a mention here as well, as the company has taken some nice steps to simplify the app, provide a bit more unification with HomeKit by adding support for “Rooms,” and increase the capabilities of the Hue Dimmer. In the prior app, the Hue Dimmer could only be programmed to turn a light or scene on or off, or dim the associated lights; in version 2.0, the Dimmer’s “on” button can be configured to trigger a different scene with each of up to five presses — by default the first press will simply turn the associated lights on to the previous state they were in, with subsequent presses activating a series of light recipes, and each press can be configured to trigger a different light recipe or scene. The update also brings a few other nice new features, such as the ability to extract a color palette from a photo to automatically build a scene with the five best colors, new widgets for the iOS home screen and Apple Watch, and expanded Routines automation.

Despite the updated app, Philips continues to treat HomeKit support as an adjunct, rather than a core integration. In other words, as before, Hue remains its own ecosystem that syncs with HomeKit, rather than tying in directly. You’ll be able to synchronize your lights, scenes, and now rooms up to HomeKit, but this is still a one-way process. If you add non-Hue accessories to a scene using another HomeKit app, they won’t be triggered by any of Hue’s automation routines, and the Hue Dimmer can only be configured to control Hue lights specifically — it doesn’t sync as a HomeKit device of any kind and is invisible outside of the Hue app. That said, the Hue Dimmer is still a great way to add manual switch control to Hue bulbs in a ceiling fixture or table lamp, and in fact, HomeKit triggers can be used to create rules based on the state of the Hue bulbs that are controlled by the switch, providing an indirect way to have a switch control over other HomeKit devices.

In our opinion, unless a user is primarily invested in the Hue ecosystem for their lighting, we generally recommend using the Hue app for configuring your system, and then using a more general HomeKit app to actually control your devices and setup automation rules. Although, as with the prior version, the Hue app does offer a few unique features that might justify creating a few very specific rules, such as a wake-up or sleep rule that fades lights in or out gradually — something that HomeKit can’t (yet) easily do.

For anybody who is serious about HomeKit and home automation, Hue is one of the best home automation platforms for lighting control, competing only with Lutron’s Caséta Wireless System. Both systems serve very different purposes, however, and with HomeKit integration can actually be used side-by-side; We still feel that Lutron’s Caséta is the ultimate solution for users who want to work with existing switches, light fixtures, and don’t mind replacing wall switches, while Hue provides a variety of other lighting solutions and is ideal for those who don’t want to pull out a screwdriver, want to work with bulb-based lamps, or appreciate the color and ambiance options that Philips offers.

Philips has also provided a nice update of the iOS Hue app, but as with the prior version, we remain a bit disappointed that the company hasn’t offered tighter HomeKit integration; it’s still not a deal-breaker with the number of other HomeKit apps available — not to mention Apple’s own Home app coming in iOS 10 — but it would at least be nice if some of Hue’s richer support for routines and accessories like the Hue Dimmer could more effectively tie into the rest of the HomeKit ecosystem.

Hue White Ambiance doesn’t change the game for Philips so much as it enhances it by offering a very nice mid-range option for users who want more white light options than the simple dimmable Hue White bulbs can offer, but aren’t willing to pay $60 per bulb for color options they may never use. The inclusion of the Hue Dimmer also provides a nice slightly added value in this particular Starter Kit, although we’re forced to question whether this was done simply to differentiate the price point a bit farther from the $80 basic white kit — if you don’t have any need for the dimmer, you can get four bulbs instead for $140 by starting with the White Kit and adding two White Ambiance Extension Bulbs separately. Still, there’s no question in our minds that the price is definitely more affordable than the full $200 Color and White Ambiance Starter Kit for users looking primarily for standard white lighting options.

Comments

Your comments are completely fair up to a point, although we were sort of torn on the app, since in some ways the new app has become easier to use, although we admit that to many power users it definitely seems to have been significantly "dumbed down." Fortunately, Philips hasn't discontinued the original Hue app, so it remains available for users who don't like the new app (although admittedly, the original isn't without its problems either).

That aside, however, from a HomeKit point of view, the Hue lighting works very well, and that's primarily what we focused on here — for many users integrating Hue bulbs into a larger HomeKit system, once everything is setup, the Hue app can be tucked away into a folder and almost never opened again if you don't need to reconfigure the system. In my own case, I have about a half-dozen Hue lights throughout the home, and I control them all using either Hue Dimmer switches or the Apple Home app or Siri-based HomeKit commands. I can't remember the last time I opened the Hue app prior to today, and I only opened it today as I'm in the process of setting up the new Hue Motion Sensor for another review.

Posted by Jesse Hollington on 2016-10-19 13:04:38

The updated IOS app for the Hue system is completely broken. It only allow you to operate on rooms and not individual bulbs. Further, it forces you to use the installed scenes when ever you turn on the bulbs, when using a routine. The rooms are not even Homekit rooms. Instead of using Homekit rooms, it uses it's own broken version of rooms. Which means that I have to do additional work to place the bulbs into Homekit rooms. You can't even do groupings in the app. If you want al bulbs in the same room to have the exact same color, they don't make it simple for you to do that either.It appears that you are putting more emphasis on the actual hardware and not the app that they ship with the system. If Philips is going to ship an app, then ship something that is useful. What they have now is not very useful. It's a very frustrating app to use.The system as a whole deserves a D. A rating of C at most. I think you have been far to generous in your rating. Else, separate the rating between the hardware and the software, because the current IOS app is very bad.

Posted by Steve Hemsley on 2016-09-11 01:15:44

Also, regardless of the IOS 10 home app, there will always be a need for the device specific apps. At least for the time being, because the device makers are ahead of Apple, in terms of features right now. For instance, Lutron just introduced a feature where my lights are turned on and off randomly, while I'm away form home. iDevices store energy consumption data on their device, which can only be accessed by their apps. Phiips has a fade on and fade off feature, where the lights progressively brighten and darken. Unless Homekit adopts these features, you will only be able to access them from the devices makers apps. And even if the IOS 10 Homekit app adopts these features, you can never tell what the next round of devices that would come out will do. Therefore, the IOS 10 app will be playing catch up. Up until IOS 10, Homekit did not support security cameras. I pretty much doubt that the IOS 10 Homekit app will support every features these devices have implemented over their life time.

Posted by James B on 2016-08-18 16:23:06

If you are using IOS 9, the apps are already on your device. So no big deal there. For IOS 10, the Home app still needs some help by the app/device developers. If I have a device, that stores schedule information in Homekit, and on my private device, there is no way that the IOS 10 Home app will know how to push down that schedule to my device if I don't tell it how to. So, there is a plugin model that allows the device makers to push down data to their devices in the format that's native to them. So, instead of having a full fledge app, I just supply a small piece of code, to the IOS 10 Home app, that knows how to talk to my device.This needs to be done for redundancy reasons. If the schedule is only stored in Homekit, and the Homekit servers goes belly up for a period time, that means my lights would not go on and off at the times they are suppose to because the schedules are only stored in one place. This is the exact problem Lutron fixed a few weeks ago. Previously, your internet went down, your schedules would stop working. Now, the schedules will keep working even if your internet connection goes down. For iDevices, they also store a copy of the schedule directly on their device as well. So, if the device cannot connect to the Homekit database, the schedules will still execute as planned. Device makers still need to plan for redundancy in this age of the cloud.

Posted by James B on 2016-08-18 16:06:30

Fair enough. I wasn't thinking so much in terms of pulling at the app level, though, but you're right that would totally work. However, that still requires the individual apps to be installed on the device, which isn't going to be ideal, especially with the iOS 10 Home app coming.

Posted by Jesse Hollington on 2016-08-18 15:46:07

It's really not a limitation on Apple's part. The whole reason behind Homekit is to stop the fragmentation. Using the Homekit database for schedules is not a hard thing to do. I'm a developer. I do this everyday. The reason the Homekit database is there is so that people don't have to go out and buy an Apple TV is they have to. It ;s the same reason Apple invested in the Home app to string all of these tings together. If manufactures don't want to invest in a couple of ours to push and pull schedule data from the Homekit database, that IOS Home app isn't going to much use in the long term. If they went to all the steps to integrate rooms, stopping at schedules seem crazy. It's really a, relatively, simple programing thing to do.

Posted by James B on 2016-08-18 15:42:47

Fair enough, although I feel like this is Apple's limitation and something that the manufacturers can't really deal with. Apple's answer is to install an Apple TV as a hub — or in iOS 10 an iPad that remains at home on the same Wi-Fi network — which will store and execute these schedules and provide remote control independently of which device you're using.

That's obviously an additional investment — although even a $69 3rd-gen Apple TV will do the trick — however for anybody who is serious about multi-vendor home automation setups and doesn't want to rely on juggling vendor-specific apps, it's definitely the only way to go. I somehow doubt we'll see Apple changing that.

Posted by Jesse Hollington on 2016-08-18 15:33:53

When you say "we remain a bit disappointed that the company hasn’t offered tighter HomeKit integration; it’s still not a deal-breaker with the number of other HomeKit apps available — not to mention Apple’s own Home app coming in iOS 10" , I think the users should know that using other Homekit apps, including the IOS 10 Home app, still falls short in controlling the Philips Hue ecosystems.Although the devices appear in rooms, and you can toggle their state on and off, that's as far as you can go. If you set a schedule, let's say in the iDevices app, to turn on a Philips Hue bulb at a certain time, the Philips Hue bulb will only come on, if the user is home at the same time the schedule is set to execute. If the user is outside, or on a different Wi-Fi network, then the schedule will fail to execute. This is because the schedule that the iDevices app created is stored in the HomeKit database and the iDevices app is the one executing the schedule. The schedule is not pushed to the private database the Philips uses for it's own purpose.If you create a schedule with the Philips Hue app, whether or not you are home, the schedule will execute, since the schedule is stored on the Philips Hub. This is the same issue with using a Lutron hub. Since both of these manufactures are only giving lip service to Homekit, fragmentation will continue, as you will be forced to use their apps to get basic things like schedules working, across all Homekit devices.

Posted by James B on 2016-08-18 15:19:47

Editors' Note: iLounge only reviews products in "final" form, but many companies now change their offerings - sometimes several times - after our reviews have been published.
This iLounge article provides more information on this practice, known as revving.